Team Composition for Perimeter Defense with Patrollers and Defenders

Abstract

We study team composition in the context of a multi-player pursuit-evasion game between intruders and defenders. The game has been previously studied assuming full state information on both teams. We extend this problem by requiring defenders to detect intruders using a limited sensor footprint before pursuit can begin. We simplify the policy synthesis for a heterogeneous team by decomposing the perimeter defense task into patrol and defense subtasks each performed by a homogeneous team. We derive a nonlinear relationship between the robot capabilities, the team sizes, and the overall defensive team performance. This interaction is then used to consider how to select the robots for each subtask when various types of robots with heterogeneous capabilities are available. We present how to accommodate parameter uncertainties and the coupling between the two subtasks in the team composition.